Seat of the week: Bendigo

The federal electorate of Bendigo has been trending to Labor since Steve Gibbons gained it for them in 1998, but it is reportedly back on the Liberals’ radar with his impending retirement.

Created at federation, the electorate of Bendigo currently extends from the city itself south to Castlemaine and the Macedon Ranges around Woodend, also taking in smaller rural centres to the west and north. The redistribution to take effect at the next election has added the Macedon Ranges area from McEwen in the electorate’s south-east, and transferred Maryborough and its surrounds to Wannon in the west. The changes respectively affect about 7000 and 10,000 voters but have only a negligible impact on the Labor margin, which goes from 9.5% to 9.4%.

Bendigo was first won by Labor in 1913, having earlier been in Protectionist and Liberal hands. Billy Hughes contested the seat as the Nationalist Prime Minister in the wake of the Labor split of 1917, having recognised he would be unable to retain his existing safe Labor seat of West Sydney, and succeeded in unseating Labor incumbent Alfred Hampson with a 12.5% swing. Hughes would remain member for five years before moving to North Sydney. Bendigo was in conservative hands thereafter until 1949, except when Richard Keane held it for a term after Labor came to office in 1929. George Rankin gained the seat for the Country Party when United Australia Party incumbent Eric Harrison retired in 1937.

Bendigo emerged with the curious of distinction of being gained by Labor when it lost office in 1949, and next lost by them when they finally returned to power in 1972. The win in 1949 resulted from the redistribution giving effect to the enlargement of parliament, which accommodated the state’s northern rural reaches in the new seat of Murray and transferred Castlemaine and Maryborough to Bendigo. John Bourchier won the seat for the Liberals against the trend of a substantial pro-Labor swing in Victoria in 1972, which was variously put down to the entry of a popular Country Party candidate and attacks on Labor member David Kennedy over state aid and his liberal position on abortion. Bourchier would in turn hold the seat until the Fraser government’s defeat in 1983.

Bendigo was then held for Labor by future Victorian Premier John Brumby, who served for three terms before joining Victorian Labor’s extensive casualty list at the 1990 election. Bruce Reid served for three terms as Liberal member until his retirement in 1998, when Labor’s Steve Gibbons, a former Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union official and electorate officer to Brumby, gained the seat with a swing of 4.4%. Gibbons came within 1.0% of defeat at the 2004 election before enjoying consecutive swings of 5.2% and 3.4% in 2007 and 2010. After announcing in September 2011 he would not seek another term, Gibbons became less disciplined in his public pronouncements, proclaiming on Twitter that Kevin Rudd was a “psychopath”, Tony Abbott a “douchebag”, Julie Bishop a “narcissistic bimbo”, and Australia Day an “Invasion Day” celebrated by “throwing bits of dead animals on a cooking fire just like the people we dispossessed”.

Labor’s new candidate is Lisa Chesters, a Kyneton-based official with the same Socialist Left union that once employed Gibbons, which has lately been rebadged as United Voice. Earlier speculation that the seat might be used to accommodate electorally endangered Senator David Feeney or even a return to federal politics for John Brumby was quickly scotched. Greg Westbrook, director of legal firm Petersen Westbrook Cameron, was an early nominee, but in the event Chesters was preselected without opposition. The Liberal candidate is Greg Bickley, owner of a local transport business. Other reported nominees for Liberal preselection were Jack Lyons, owner of construction business Lyons Constructions, and Peter Wiseman, a teacher and owner of a website design business.

The consequences are now such that Swan is unbelievable and if the budget comes in at less than $20 Billion he wont be able to claim any credit for an improved budget position because he went hard on it will be a surplus.

I’m pretty sure no one in Treasury recommended Swan go as hard as he did on his surplus promise.

Swan needs to be moved, yes he was successful in avoiding a recession but its time for new challenges.

mexicanbeemer, I understand the point you are making but i disagree…..

It was correct to seek to bring the Budget into surplus as soon as responsibly possible and when future developments such as taxation payments not reaching the best available projections, it was then correct not to push for a surplus at any costs.

Both your position and my contrary position are opinions, however Polling also supports Swans decisions.

In fact the decision not to push for an immediate balanced budget is more popular than tony abbott –

Essential poll of 29 October showed that 37% of the population supported the return to budget surplus while 43% were opposed to a budget surplus or in other words, supported a deficit.

Essential poll of 10 December, approval for Mr Abbott as Leader of the Opposition was 33%, while disapproval was 56%.

A budget deficit was 10 percentage points more popular than Mr Abbott .

Lastest Essential Poll last week – Mr Abbott remains more unpopular than a Budget surplus with an approval of 36%, while disapproval was 53%.

Regarding PvO he has no excuse. He knows how to do research. So he should know its Caucus that decides. However he has even less excuse. I and I assume many others have pointed out to him he needs to name people in Caucus changing support or its all a load of crap.

I have never criticised Swan for aiming for a surplus and of course his ultimate decision to drop the commitment was the right thing to do for it was clear to nearly everyone that the economy needed the Government to go more slowly towards it objective of a surplus.

The problem with Swan is that even when the evidence was mounting up that a surplus would not happen instead of taking a more realistic view, Swan actually went harder on claiming he would deliver.

It was only when it was beyond all doubt that Swan finally admitted that it was time to pull his head in.

I am not saying he should not have set targets but there is a difference between aspiring to a target and pure bloody mildness.

The thing is the economy is performing better than it was expected to be based on the 2009/10 budget yet Swan hasn’t allowed himself to own that.

I believe that in fact such a position taken by Swan show that he is across his portfolio because it shows that he understands the interrelationships between what may appear to the uneducated to be unrelated figures. You start to change the deficit/surplus you must change the employment/unemployment figures and of cause that affects the interest rates and the inflation rate. This then will impact the GDP figures and the growth in GDP.

These figures do not exist in isolation, they are all interrelated. It is like that old song – “the foot bone is connected to the leg bone, the leg bone is connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bone is connected to the back bone” etc etc.

So if you say that the surplus/deficit cannot be relied upon you are saying that the unemployment rate is also not sound nor is the expected interest rate or the expected CPI.

It means that none of the figures in the budget can be relied upon.

Now that says to all and sundry that we do not have a stable economy and that inflation, interest rates productivity unemployment etc can be anything.

On hearing that anyone with any sense would get their money out of the country as soon as possible because we have reached and exceed the “banana Republic” that Keating warned us about.

Bendigo is an interesting seat whilst on paper the ALP should hold but with no setting MP then this seat may fall to the Liberals just the same it will be interesting to see if any state factors come into play due to the areas importance at the next state poll

I am not saying Swan or any competent manager or minister should ignore the fundamentals.

What i am saying is if Swan had been looking at them more closely then he should have seen that his surplus promise was overly bullish.

Normally there is nothing wrong with setting high targets and Treasury traditionally takes a conservative approach to forecasting but on this occasion Swan allowed himself to put the political considerations ahead of the economic until it got to the point that Swan was forced by reality to accept it was better to focus on achieving a balanced approach to economic management.

I fundamentally disagree with with your call that *Swan needs to be moved*. That is way over the top.

Its just what that buffoon hockey was banging on about this week.

Swan is DPM in a reforming Labor Government, awarded ‘World’s Best Treasurer’ and he certainly can claim a significant portion of the credit for our economy’s out performance against the vast majority of other advanced economies over almost 6 years, through and beyond the GFC.

Low unemployment, Low Inflation, Low Interest rates, Low Net Debt and a budget deficit of modest size in comparison to other advanced economies coming back into surplus in the short term. Direct Foreign Investment high and foreigners lining up to invest in our safe currency and economy.

This is true and i have never disputed these bison’s, all i have said is Swan has on a few occasions has been overly bullish and has needed to be dragged kicking and screaming to accept economic reality.

Voters know it was a political surplus. A point the Greens hammered to quite some extent enabling economists to say the same.
The public know why Swan was so “bullish”. The public breathed a sigh of relief when reality was acknowledged.

Now its the LNP losing as they show they want the surplus at the cost of hobs and services.

all i have said is Swan has on a few occasions has been overly bullish and has needed to be dragged kicking and screaming to accept economic reality.

I think Swan can do better.

We can all, always ‘do better’. However…..

Finance Ministers in the majority of advanced economies would swap their economic positions with that of Australia’s in a heart beat and Swan has made a ongoing and significant contribution to Australia’s economic position.

You have called for him to be ‘moved on’.

Thats just the nonsense propaganda being repeated over and over by the libs and some are erroneously falling into line with it.

Repeat something often enough….etc etc…..

To say he ‘has needed to be dragged kicking and screaming to accept economic reality’ has straightforward reply -

if Swan had not being so headstrong on the we will have a surplus then i think that support may have been higher

You have overlooked the following from #2 above -

It was correct to seek to bring the Budget into surplus as soon as responsibly possible and when future developments such as taxation payments not reaching the best available projections, it was then correct not to push for a surplus at any costs.

If a lib treasurer had anywhere near the results under his belt that Swan has, that lib would be being lauded as a national hero by them and the media.

Your reaction is that he should have achieved even higher/ more than the current majority support evident in polling.

The real problem is the current government does not inspire people nor does it acknowledge that I think about 84 percent of Oz is employed by the private sector of which I am one. There has been disaster after disaster with no solution except a political one. Confidence has never been lower nor do I want a government 51% controlled by ex unionists who are not representative of the majority. Look at NSW inc. Bottom line is we need a successful biz sector to make profits that will help people from all walks of life. Look at the success of my parent’s birthplace – Norway which is a very small country but does not have the division that we have in Oz

What i am saying is if Swan had been looking at them more closely then he should have seen that his surplus promise was overly bullish.

Do you have any idea how these figures are calculated and where the raw data comes from? It is clear that you don’t otherwise you would not have made such a statement. The figures that you think should have been looking at more closely by Swan would have gone through a number of hands before they got to Treasury. Swan would not nor could not make such a statement until Treasury provided the assessment of how the tax revenue was actually going. There are many entities involved and not all of them are in Government.

Up to when Swan made the announcement that the surplus may not be achieved the Treasury and the Government would have been working on projections and real numbers obtained for the midyear economic review which still supported the argument that there would be a surplus. The numbers that prompted Treasury/Swan to make that announcement would have been the next series of date obtained some real some still projections and they would have been acted on asap. The real date would have been up to the 31st December while the projections would have been for the next six months after that.

My question to you is where do these real figures come from? Do you understand the work needed to firstly produce a midyear economic review and the work need to update these figures? It is not simple nor is it able to be done in a minute or two. We are taking about many months of labour hours to produce these figures and that would just be in Treasury let alone the other arms of Government that would be involved.

You indicate that somehow this is a matter of setting targets. But that must be done in conjunction with the real facts and how the projections relate to real world events. The “surplus” would have been the most likely result when all the known and the estimations were brought together and would have continued to be so up till the end of last year or early this year. Even now the Treasury and Swan are not in a position to say what the deficit will be just that it is “unlikely” that there will not be a surplus.

If the figures showed a surplus (and private economists can check) and the Government say there will be a deficit the entire budget is worthless.

As well you seem to be unaware of Swan’s roll in these exercises. He sets that very high level policy and ticks off on other Ministers programs. When working out the “surplus figure” it would have been Swan and Gillard that would have pruned down or cut out certain programs so as to reach a surplus. However, it is Treasury that does most of the work and it is they that make the suggestions as to what to keep, prune or cut. Swan is not bullish nor is he a bear. If you wish to place those descriptors on anyone Treasury is the place to go. Treasury produces the budget and these figures for the Government not the other way around.

The Coalition and its supporters seem to believe that Public Servants are a special type of employee, a group who do not spend money in other sectors of the economy, and that if you turf a lot of them there will be a negative effect on other parts of the economy.
Maybe it’s that the ACT overall votes Labor, but many APS live in Queanbeyan (which is part of the “bellwether” seat of Eden-Monaro), and we do actually leave the ACT and spend money in other places, some of which are also in Eden-Monaro.

Even John would have been blushing. Government electorate with 7000 voters, opposition with 100,000.

Senator Xenophon and Dr Fernandes were part of a 2012 International Fact-Finding Mission on Elections in Malaysia, whose report was critical of the Government and which called for electoral reform.

"Senator Xenophon and a delegation of Australian parliamentarians were going to Malaysia to meet with politicians, the Malaysian Bar Council and the Electoral Commission to discuss electoral reform outlined in that report," he said.

"There is no doubt the reason he is being deported is because the report was critical of the electoral system - for example it showed a leading government figure has an electorate with just 7000 voters while the Deputy Opposition Leader has an electorate with 100,000 constituents.

About this blog

William Bowe is a doctoral candidate with the University of Western Australia’s Discipline of Political Science and International Relations. He has been running the electoral studies blog The Poll Bludger since January 2004, independently until September 2008 and thereafter with Crikey.